Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(112)

“No,” she said immediately and truthfully. “But if you find someone who will, tell him I’ll pay half.” That was the truth, too.

“I’ll do that,” I told her. Then it took me about twenty minutes to extract us from her condo, by the end of which even Nadia caught on to what Ms. Covington wanted from us.

“I am really glad I brought you with me for that,” I told Nadia.

Nadia giggled. She hadn’t even bothered doing any magic. No need for it. “I don’t think I was much help. She’d have taken both of us to bed, wouldn’t she?”

“You, me, and the stray dog outside, yes, ma’am.” I pulled out into traffic. Maybe I was driving a little faster than normal.

“I’ve never seen you disconcerted before,” she said. “Usually you just talk slower and use lots of ain’ts and ma’ams.”

“Now I know how those sixty-year-old wives feel when their husband of forty years comes back from the doctor with a bottle full of blue pills.” I wasn’t as flustered as I made out, but I enjoyed Nadia’s laughter. She didn’t laugh as often as she ought.

•   •   •

Harper Sullivan was a retired doctor.

Divorce is a nasty business and secrets tend to come out. The good doctor’s secret was that he liked to diagnose his patients with various life-threatening diseases they didn’t have. Of course, that meant they had to come in for frequent treatments. Eventually (especially when they were getting ready to get a second opinion), they were miraculously cured, all credit going to the doctor.

Kyle’d used blackmail to get a nice settlement for the doctor’s ex-wife (who wasn’t any great shakes herself if she’d kept quiet about what he was doing for twenty years) and to force the doctor to retire. There wasn’t real proof, Kyle’d explained to me, only hearsay—enough to ruin Sullivan’s reputation and get the AMA on his case, but he’d likely have kept his license. Blackmail was better because it kept more people from being harmed. Kyle can occasionally be as pragmatic as a wolf when it comes to making sure that justice is done.

Dr. Sullivan was weeding his azalea bed when we drove up. He didn’t look up until I cleared my throat. It always bothered me that he looked like that doctor in that old TV show—Marcus Welby, M.D.

“Doctor,” I said, “I’m Warren Smith. I’m a private investigator. This is my partner for the day, Nadia Popov. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Of course,” he said, getting up and pulling off his work gloves. “It is getting hot out, though. Why don’t you come in and have some iced tea?”

I’d met him a couple of times, and it was unlikely that he didn’t know me. But he gave no sign of it that I could discern, even when I introduced myself.

He led us around to the back door of the big brick house—explaining that he didn’t want to track dirt inside. He showed us into his living room—a big space with hardwood floors, real Persian rugs, and antique furniture, some of it even older than I was. But the thing that dominated the room was a wall of windows that looked out over the Columbia River.

We were both staring at the view when he shot me.

It wasn’t silver, and a lead bullet wasn’t going to kill me—but it hurt a lot. I spun and snarled, a hand to my shoulder. He wasn’t a very good shot if he missed my heart at that range.

It was the second time I’d had a gun pulled on me today—I’d expected something of the sort from Nyelund, though I’d hoped that meeting him at his work would preclude actual violence. The doctor I’d picked as someone who’d hire out his dirty work. At least he wasn’t a marksman.

“Oops,” he said and adjusted his aim.

“STOP,” said Nadia.

Now, a dominant can enforce his will on a lesser wolf. I’d done something of the sort with Kyle yesterday when I’d made him quit pulling against the zombie’s bite. But this was something else again, ’cause not only did the doctor freeze, but so did I. And it wasn’t the kind of hesitation—the loss of will to disobey that my Alpha could hit me with—my body flat-out refused to move at all.

Screw that.

I drew in a deep breath and called out the wolf—who shook off the magic like water that wanted to cling where it wasn’t supposed to. He also healed up a fair bit of the damage the pistol had done. I took a step mostly to prove I could.

She didn’t even notice me; she was too busy with Sullivan. “You won’t kill anyone,” she told him in that same black-magic voice. “You’ll leave Kyle Brooks alone.” I was really glad I’d broken her hold on me before that one. “You won’t remember this. You’ll just feel as though whatever we were talking about got solved. Everything will be all right.”

“All right,” muttered the doctor, and my wolf saw that something was broken inside him, something that had been whole and well when we’d come here. In an elk, it was the sign that the animal was done for; next blizzard, next predator, and it wouldn’t fight to survive.

Nadia turned and seemed a little surprised to see me so close. “Your shoulder?”

“Healing,” I said. “I’m fine.” Sometimes things like that took a long time to heal, and once in a while they just closed right up. This was that once in a while. I looked around, but there had been surprisingly little blood; most of it had been absorbed by my clothes.